Fragility
by GoddessApostle
Summary: It starts with a tap, and then a crack, until finally it shatters. Or perhaps it just crumbles away into dust.
**A/N: My first non-ML fic in a while!**

* * *

It started out slowly.

So slowly no one noticed.

In fact, the first time was an accident. A slip of her mind that resulted in reward. A short, slippery road traveled so quickly she almost couldn't jump the obstacles it hurled at her. But she had managed to anyway, going around, through, and over them quite easily with the help of her Quirk.

Too bad she couldn't scale the cliff in front of her as easily. The walls were rough and there weren't enough handholds, and her Quirk _did_ have its limits.

She placed her palm against the rock and thought back to how this all started.

* * *

 _Inside her mind, there is a box. It completely encases her, but she doesn't feel trapped. She knows it protects her from dark thoughts, stops her from doing things she'd regret._

 _She supposes it's her conscience._

 _=•=•=•=_

She put the necklace in her bag.

A simple mistake on her part. She'd been admiring it in the store with her friends when a villain attacked it. She slipped it in without thinking, her mind focused on how to take down the villain. (Of course she didn't do anything. She wasn't a hero yet, after all.)

But by the time the heroes had arrived, the necklace was all but forgotten.

When she realized she still had it, she'd run to the store to return it, where the manager paid her for her service.

"I can't accept this," she told her. "It's my fault in the first place.

But the woman just smiled at her and said, "I insist. Not everyone would be so honest. I appreciate that."

=•=•=•=

 _The box is clear, like glass, but not fragile like it. It darkened sometimes, and she tried to break it sometimes, but it never gave way. It was strong, bolstered by her feelings for her friends. Nothing could penetrate it, no matter how hard it tapped or banged against it._

 _But suddenly, she found a chip._

 _=•=•=•=_

She wished the second time was an accident. She'd checked her memory over and over again, unable to decipher her own thought process when she did it.

She was out shopping with her friends again. This time they'd hit up a fancy jewelry store instead of looking at the cheap knockoffs in department stores. The kind of store that had its wares behind glass counters, where a salesperson had to hand you what you were interested in.

They were looking for the pure fun of it, of course. They couldn't afford anything like real diamonds and pearls. But it was fun to imagine the possibilities. _"What if I wore this necklace to a grand ball?" "What if my husband proposed using this ring?" "What if these earrings became my symbol as a hero?"_

It was all in good fun. They had a good laugh. It was probably annoying the man behind the counter, considering they couldn't actually buy anything, but still.

She had just picked up a necklace - a thin silver chain with a small charm hanging from it - when a villain attacked. The villain, more trigger-happy than the last, demanded everyone to the get on the floor, which she happily did in a huddle with her friends.

But not before slipping the necklace into her pocket. There weren't any alarms that she could see. She could just walk out with it. But first the villain had to be dealt with.

Her friends had gotten more... _Liberal_ with their Quirks the more time they spent at UA, and she was the same. They devised a plan to capture the villain before he could hurt anyone, a feat that proved to be a bit difficult when he was waving that gun around.

But they did it nonetheless, and no one noticed she still had the necklace.

=•=•=•=

 _The chip had spread._

 _Er... That probably wasn't the right way to put it._

 _But that's the way she wants to put it. Her box wasn't so fragile it would_ crack _, was it?_

 _Surely not. She was just stressed. From the realization that she relied too much on her friends, to Bakugou being kidnapped and not going to help him. It was just too much to put on a teenager's shoulders. Too much stress. It had nothing to do with her growing collection of stolen goods._

 _Nothing at all._

 _=•=•=•=_

This store had an alarm system.

She eyed it as she walked in, but it was nothing special. Just gates around the doors that went off if something with a security tag went through. She could just fling something over them. And if she used her Quirk, it would stay in place long enough for her to retrieve it.

No one was paying her any attention. So she moved closer to the door, feigning interest in the flowers by it and tossed the bracelet she held over the gates. It floated above them and out the doors, where it caught on the canopy.

She moved back into the store when she saw it caught in the corner. She had other stuff to buy, and she could collect the bracelet on her way out.

=•=•=•=

 _The cracks were spreading. It seemed impossible, but they were. They cover nearly the entire box now._ Oh, _how she tried to rationalize it._ 'I just need some money for rent.' 'My parents already give me so much, I can't ask for more.' 'This is the last time. Just until I find a job.'

 _She tapped the cracks and prayed they would hold._

 _=•=•=•=_

Her collection was too big. She couldn't wear any of it, that would be too suspicious. But she needed to get rid of it. So she sold it. It was easy. She just went to the shadier parts of town and offered what she had. She could get ten thousand yen within an hour. It was amazing.

The only thing she didn't sell was the first necklace she stole. She kept it, wore it under her clothes, claimed it to be a family heirloom if asked about. She liked to bring it out and look at the charm when she was especially stressed.

It was cute. A silver clover made of looping wire, with a pink pearl in the middle. It was her good luck charm. She couldn't bear to part with it, no matter how suspicious it made her look.

She was sure to hide it at school. If any of the teachers saw it, they'd know for a fact it was stolen by her. So she kept it in her school bag until she got home.

It was just her luck that it happened to spill out when she fell in the hallway and was seen by Aizawa. He looked from it to her, then carefully plucked it from the floor. It dangled in his grasp, held gently between his fingers and thumb, the charm hovering in front of her face. She snatched it from him and stammered out her explanation, hoping it would satisfy his curiosity.

She could tell it didn't by the way his eyes followed her for the rest of the day.

=•=•=•=

 _She sits in her box, her head resting on her knees and arms wrapped around her legs. She watches the world around her with distant curiosity. But lines spiderweb across her vision, no matter where she looks._

 _There's no place on her box that's not covered in cracks._

=•=•=•=

She needs a break. She can't keep stealing. But she still has so much stuff from when she has.

She makes up her mind and sets out, the rest of her items in a bag on her arm. She'll get rid of them all at once, just drop them off somewhere in one of the areas she's sold them before.

She's walking briskly when she sees a flash of silver hair and her bag disintegrates, dropping the contents to the sidewalk.

She's more than happy to keep walking, to ignore the incident and the person she knows is responsible for it.

But she pauses when he calls out to her. She doesn't move when he wraps arm around her and steers her to a bar down a desolate alley. He asks her questions along the way, mostly about Midoriya. And when they reached the door of the bar, he offers her a choice - she can join them, or she can die.

Faces float in front of her vision. Her classmates, disappointed. Her teachers, angry. Her parents, devastated.

=•=•=•=

 _The box shatters in front of her. It just falls to pieces, and when she looks behind her, she sees a pile of dust where the back used to be, with a hand beckoning her towards darkness._

 _=•=•=•=_

She opens the door and walks in.

* * *

"Uraraka! _Please!_ We can talk about this!"

Of course the heroes raided the place soon after she disappeared. A rescue mission, probably.

She lowered her hand and turned.

Deku- no, Midoriya. Iida. Asui. Even Bakugou had come to save her, even though she hadn't done the same for him.

He was glaring, as he usually did. But his eyes were a hair narrower, his brows a touch more furrowed. Like he was troubled, instead of just angry. He was quiet, too, as he stood there studying her while De- Midoriya continued to yell. He pressed his lips together before thrusting his hand out to Midoriya to stop his tirade.

"This isn't you," he said to her, calmly and quietly.

She tilted her head forward to hide her faltering glare. "This isn't you either," she told him, just as calm and quiet as he was. She held her fists in front of her, adopting a defensive stance. She would fight her way out of this, if she had to, but for now her plan was to just get past them and run. She'd have to tag Iida as she went by, though, and hope his armor wasn't as heavy as it looked. She shifted her stance for a burst of speed, the sun glinting off her necklace.

"Uraraka." Bakugou was still quiet. It unnerved her. She grit her teeth and started forward, only to run into a black mist.

The last thing she heard was Bakugou yelling her name.

"Ochako!"

* * *

 **A/N: So everyone (well, in-universe extras, at least) thinks Katsuki would turn to villainy so easily. As we know, that's not true. But I would love love LOVE it if Ochako got an arc like that. Not like Tenya's rogue arc, an actual villain arc (with redemption at the end, of course.) Idk, I think she has a very good setup for it.**


End file.
